The Death of Natasha Romanoff
by Philosophize
Summary: While helping to stop Stane, Natasha encounters a face she never thought she'd see again. Forced to deal with memories, decisions, and a life she thought she'd long left behind, will she survive the emotional upheaval, not to mention the rampaging, homicidal Stane? Or will she have to face her fears & transform herself, becoming once again what she once was? AU; fem!Harry; femslash
1. Exit Natasha Romanoff

**A/N**: I don't know where this story idea came from. I was sitting there, minding my own business, when **wham!** It hit me. Then it wouldn't leave me alone. All I can say is that pretty much everything derived from the ending scene of the first chapter.

The year is 2008 and we start out in the midst of events that occur near the end of the first Iron Man movie.

Note that this is very, very AU — if any characters seem like they are acting out of character, they probably are... and there's probably a good reason for that.

**A/N 2**: Thanks to kenobisunryder for letting me use the artwork that the cover image is based on. What I have here is a cropped version, so visit her DeviantArt site to see the full version and other great images she's created. A special thanks as well to Mainsail and Bonnie for beta reading this story and making the the whole thing better.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Harry Potter, that's owned by J.K. Rowling. I don't own the Avengers, either. That's owned by Marvel. In a couple of places, a phrase or sentence or two of dialog from the movie _Iron Man_ has been incorporated into the story to better blend this story with the movie.

_Italics:_ people's thoughts.

* * *

**Chapter 1 - Exit Natasha Romanoff**

"Check, Coulson, I've arrived with Team 22. Everything is green. We'll be waiting downstairs. Black Widow out."

Natasha Romanoff was bored. Because of her career working as an undercover agent, an assassin, and more, she'd had to learn patience. A lot of patience. However, that didn't make her immune to boredom — especially when she felt that her skills were being underutilized or she had been assigned unnecessary grunt work.

That was essentially her situation now. Sitting in the basement parking garage of Stark Industries with a standard three-agent S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team, waiting in case Agent Coulson needed help picking up Stark's assistant, Pepper Potts, was **not** the sort of mission that Natasha believed someone of her skills and experience should be doing.

_Ugh, arrogant much, Nat?_ she berated herself. _OK, it __**is**_ _arrogant, but it's also true. I can do amazing things. I can kill with a whisper that only the target will ever hear — and it will be the last thing they ever hear, too. I can covertly enter any building and steal anything. I can pretend to be anyone. Yet here I am, sitting in a parking garage, twiddling my thumbs..._

Shifting the rearview mirror so she could see the team she was babysitting, she said, "You boys still good back there?" Getting only nods in confirmation, she continued, "Good. Do a weapons, comms, and gear check, just to be sure." Maybe **she** wasn't allowed to do anything interesting or useful right now, but she'd be damned if she'd let **them** sit idle.

Returning the mirror to its original position, she did a visual sweep of the garage — or at least of what little she could see from this parking spot. Nothing. She rolled down the window to determine what she could hear. Nothing. Closing her eyes, she extended her senses outward — one of the few active forms of her special skills that she was willing to use anymore — to determine if any threats were in the immediate vicinity. Nothing.

She sighed inwardly at how useless she felt right now. Yes, she could do amazing things. Director Nick Fury knew of some of what she could do; in fact, he probably knew a lot more than he'd ever let on. But he didn't know everything, and no matter how much he suspected, there were some things he'd never learn, not unless she wanted him to. She smiled at the thought of how much that must rankle him. Well, she'd gotten her fill of nosey, manipulative old men long ago. Since she hadn't yet been able to entirely escape their type, she chose to tweak those noses whenever the opportunity presented itself.

A girl's gotta have a hobby.

Glancing down at the clock, she despaired when she saw that it had been a grand total of two minutes since she had checked in with Coulson.

* * *

Natasha's cell phone hadn't even completed its first ring before she answered it. "Widow here."

"Potts and I are en route to your location right now. Get everyone into a defensive position, something's gone wrong." Coulson was the most unflappable agent she'd ever met, but she could detect a subtle tone of concern in his voice. She was giving the hand signals to get her team out and moving even before Coulson finished speaking. Once outside the SUV herself, she silently pointed them to where she wanted them.

"Coulson," she spoke softly into the phone, "we're in position. ETA and threat assessment?"

"ETA two minutes; threat unknown, but for now treat all Stark employees as possible hostiles."

_Shit. What has that damned playboy gone and done now?_ "Do you have a current location on Stark? Do you need me to take him?"

Potts' angry voice was loud enough that it came through in stereo — once through the phone and again echoing from somewhere in the parking garage. "Tony is not a threat! He's the one in danger! The threat is Stane. Obadiah Stane. He paid to have Tony murdered in Afghanistan!"

Natasha stilled. Obadiah Stane was responsible for Stark's kidnapping? Was now the current threat? None of the files she'd read considered him to be even a **potential** threat. He was regarded as a shrewd businessman, but nothing more. _Well_, Natasha thought, _it looks like the pencil-pushers were wrong in their assessment of the man and his motives._

With the arrival of Coulson and Pepper, the team took up new positions to form a defensive perimeter. "What now?" Natasha asked.

"Let me try to reach Tony," Pepper said with a hint of desperation in her voice. "If I can warn him, this will all go a lot better." She hit the speed dial button and waited for more than a minute for him to answer. "He's still not picking up. I... wait, let me try Rhodey." Hitting a different speed dial number, she only had to wait a couple of seconds before Rhodey Rhodes picked up.

"Rhodey! I'm so glad I could reach you. This is an emergency. I'm at Stark Headquarters. I found out that Obi tried to murder Tony. Yes, Obi! I saw the evidence on his computer! He paid people in Afghanistan to murder Tony! And he's still a threat! He's selling Stark weapons to terrorists around the world, I think."

Natasha and Coulson gave each other a concerned look on hearing that bit of information. Until Stark's return from Afghanistan, his company had been making some of the most advanced weaponry in the world. If the top man in Stark Industries was funneling those weapons to terrorists, then a lot of people were going to get killed. Coulson wasted no time using his own cell phone to deliver the bad news to Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director.

"I don't know where Tony is now," Pepper continued, "I've been trying to call him, but he never answers. I thought you'd know where he is. Can you get to him? I'd go to his home myself, but I have government agents here with me and we have something we need to look into. Thanks!"

Turning to Agent Coulson, she said "Rhodey is going to go check on Tony for me. When I was looking through Stane's computer files, I found information on a project he's working on — something that could be really bad. Come on, I'll take you there."

Pepper immediately started moving in a new direction with Natasha and Coulson taking positions on either side of her. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team automatically took up their own positions: one covering the rear and one on each flank. "We need to go to Section 16 of the Stark research area. I know a shortcut," Potts told them.

Looking at the black-clad woman to her left, Pepper introduced herself. "I'm Pepper Potts, by the way."

Natasha nodded, saying, "Natasha Romanoff, S.H.I.E.L.D. special operations. What is it that's so bad that we have to all go check it out, Ms. Potts?"

Pepper looked back at the green-eyed woman briefly before answering, "What I saw in those computer files looked like a powered suit similar to the Iron Man suit, but much larger and much more powerful. Since he tried to have Tony killed and is selling or wants to sell weapons to terrorists, I don't think Stane will be using such a suit to promote world peace. With a personal weapon like that, he could become unstoppable."

Natasha shuddered at this revelation. S.H.I.E.L.D. had done a threat assessment on Iron Man, in case Tony ever went rogue or the wrong people ever got ahold of his suit. The assessment team's conclusions were pretty grim: in the hands of someone who knew how to use the suit and didn't flinch at violence, they would be able to cause a tremendous amount of death and destruction before they could be stopped — and that was assuming they consented to a stand-up fight. If they were smart in their use of hit-and-run tactics, the destruction could become incalculable.

Natasha had done her own personal threat assessment on Iron Man, just in case she herself was ever tasked with the job of taking him out. Using her normal skillset, it would be difficult if not impossible. If she was lucky and the suit was being used by Stark or someone like him, she might be able to use psychological tactics to get inside their head. Otherwise, she'd be completely outclassed.

If she were to use her... _other_ skillset, the one she had been mostly suppressing for several years, then the game changed quite a bit. She would still be outclassed in many ways, but some of the weapons she could bring to bear would be beyond the suit's ability to defend against, no matter how skilled the driver.

Though, that didn't take into account the risks to herself, the reason why she'd been avoiding active use of those skills for so many years.

On top of that, Potts was claiming that Stane had started construction of a much larger and much more powerful version of the Iron Man suit. Natasha wasn't sure if she could go toe-to-toe with something like that. Certainly not without potentially levelling a couple of city blocks as well as increasing the risks to herself.

* * *

_If that was a shortcut, then I'd hate to see the long route_, Natasha thought. _Got to give Potts credit, though — she did it in heels without slowing down._

"Well," Coulson said when they arrived at the door to Section 16, "you promised me the meeting of my life, Ms. Potts. What have you got to show us?" As the other three agents took up defensive positions, Natasha did a visual sweep for potential threats and cover. It was an empty area, so there wasn't much of either.

Natasha returned her attention to Potts, who was fiddling with the door. "My key isn't working. I can't get this door open. I don't understand, I have full authorization over everything in this company — there is **nothing** that I'm not allowed to see or inspect. Nothing!"

Coulson wasn't going to let a little thing like a locked door stop him and pulled out a small explosive that he began attaching to the door. That was one of the reasons why Natasha respected Coulson so much: he never resorted to force or violence unless he had to, but once committed, he never hesitated to use the amount necessary to get a job done. Several years ago, not long after she had been recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson was assigned to train her on the organization's policies and tactics. It was as a consequence of those lessons that she had ended up adopting a similar philosophy herself — quite a shift from what her mentor at school had expected from her.

"What's that?" Potts asked Coulson somewhat excitedly. "What does that device do? Does it automatically pick the lock for us?"

Coulson's reply was delivered in a completely neutral, matter-of-fact tone of voice. "You might want to take a few steps back, Ms. Potts. And perhaps cover your ears." With a push of the button on the detonator in his hand, Coulson blew the door apart in an explosion that was quite spectacular given the size of the device.

Once the echoes of the explosion had faded, Natasha could hear someone running inside. She doubted the others would have picked it up because their senses hadn't been enhanced like hers. "Coulson," she said, "There's at least one runner in there." He nodded in understanding — he hadn't heard anything, but he always trusted her in such matters.

Coulson and Natasha stayed close to Potts while the three agents of Team 22 spread out to track down whoever was inside. Moving through the building, they discovered that it was an odd combination of factory and storage facility. There was old equipment all over, but there were also areas where it looked like some sort of manufacturing had occurred recently. It didn't seem like the sort of place where anything modern and high-tech would be constructed.

Potts was the first to spot a dented, dirty, and heavily damaged set of metal parts that looked like it could have been a suit of armor. _This doesn't look larger and more powerful to me_, Natasha thought.

"Looks like your information was good, Ms. Potts," Coulson said as he examined the hunks of metal. "He was indeed building a suit."

Potts looked confused, though. "Based on what I saw on Stane's computer, I thought this would be a lot larger. This looks like something **I** could fight against." She looked around, trying to see if there were any more clues as to what was going on here.

Suddenly, a massive shape started moving behind and above the three people. Natasha was the first to detect the threat and shouted, "Take it out! Stop it!" Everyone with a weapon started firing on the moving mass of metal, but their bullets bounced off. Apparently dismissing the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as inconsequential, it started stomping towards Pepper Potts, who promptly ran.

On flat, open ground, Pepper wouldn't have stood a chance at outrunning the metal behemoth behind her. In the crowded, cluttered factory, though, she managed to keep her distance because it was too hemmed in to get up to speed. In an attempt to catch up, the armored monstrosity shouldered aside a tall set of industrial shelving that was used to store heavy equipment. As it fell, Natasha heard a high-pitched scream that couldn't have come from Pepper or any of the agents.

"I need to go check something," Natasha started to tell Coulson when she saw Potts run through a door that led in the same direction she had heard the scream come from. The powered suit, presumably being driven by Stane, was unable to follow through the thick concrete wall. "Well," Natasha continued, "I guess I'll take care of Potts, too."

Coulson only nodded as he began to follow Stane, who was using the suit to climb up and out of the factory.

* * *

Moving nimbly through piles of now-ruined equipment, Natasha caught a glimpse of Pepper's red hair and moved in her direction. As she got close, she saw Potts was kneeling over a body on the ground — hopefully a live body, but from her perspective it didn't look good to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

In addition to finding the injured person, it sounded like Pepper had also finally gotten through to Tony Stark. "Tony? Are you OK," she said into her cell phone. "Obadiah's gone insane. He's built this massive suit... and there's been injuries here in the factory." She paused for a moment before saying "Tony? Tony?"

Turning quickly at the sound of Natasha's footsteps, Pepper was clearly relieved to see who it was. "Ms. Romanoff! I'm so glad it's you. Can you help me here? This person is..."

Natasha reached the two and saw that the body on the ground was a woman in a lab coat. Eyes moving up the slim figure, she reached the woman's face and recognition crashed into her like a runaway lorry. Memories, fear, pain, grief, and sorrow flooded her mind, driving out everything else.

"Hermione!" she gasped, reaching out with one hand as she collapsed to her knees next to the one person she never expected to see again. The one person she wanted above all to be able to see every day.

Shocked, Pepper asked "Do you know her?" Upon seeing how pale the female agent had become and the horror on her face, she quickly added "Are **you** alright? Are you hurt?"

"Never mind about me! What about Hermione! Is she alive? Where is she hurt?" Finally able to focus again, Natasha's hands were moving all over Hermione's body, trying to find any source of injury.

"She's breathing and has a pulse, but both are weak. I can't find any injury," Pepper said. "I'm sorry, but do you know Hermione here? Ms. Granger is one of our top researchers, despite not having been with us for long. I don't know what exactly she does, but I know that Tony has been impressed with her work."

Ignoring the redhead, Natasha removed one of her ubiquitous gloves and gently placed a hand against Hermione's cheek. Leaning over the unconscious and injured woman until their faces nearly touched, she moaned softly, "Oh, Hermione. Dear, sweet Hermione. What were you doing here? It's been ten years, Hermione. Ten years! What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to protect you and still stop the one who did this to you?" Brushing aside a tear, she rested her forehead against the other woman's while trying to figure out what to do.

Without warning, Natasha sat back up and started pulling off her other glove. _I don't know how injured she is and I can't take the risk that whatever damage she's suffered is too serious to be easily survived without immediate medical attention,_ Natasha realized. _I have to intervene now so I can go after Stane._

Gasping when she saw Natasha's green eyes start to glow, Pepper wondered who this woman was. "Did you know your eyes..."

"Quiet," Natasha barked. "I need to concentrate." Slipping her bare hands under Hermione's shirt, making direct skin contact with the friend she had abandoned without a word a decade earlier, she **pushed**, and raw power flowed from her into the injured woman. Hermione's entire body glowed briefly, then her breathing improved as her chest visibly rose and fell.

Natasha took a deep breath herself before putting her gloves back on, then she leaned forward again and gave a light kiss to the injured woman's cheek. With a slight glow still emanating from her eyes, she turned to Pepper and said, "I'm making **you** responsible for Hermione Granger's well-being. Watch over her. Call the paramedics. Make sure they take care of her. Don't let her be left alone."

"Yes, I'll take care of her. Of course. But what are you going to do?"

"Stane hurt Hermione." Natasha balled up her fists and Pepper could see sparks of energy running across the black, scaly material of her gloves. "Nobody hurts Hermione," she continued as her voice deepened and she slowly stood up. Pepper could feel waves of anger and power crashing over her. It was almost suffocating.

"**I. Will. Tear. Him. To. PIECES.**"

In a single, swift motion, Natasha stood, twisted, and disappeared with a pop.

No one knew yet, not even the woman in question, but Natasha Romanoff was no more.


	2. Beat Down

**A/N**: According to some of the messages I've received, some people were still unsure at the end of the last chapter about Natasha's identity. I tried not to be ridiculously obvious about it, but there should be enough clues there to figure it out. For those still having trouble, though, there are more clues in this chapter. If you _still_ can't figure it out, the official reveal occurs in chapter three.

* * *

**Chapter 2 - Beat Down**

Tony Stark's head was ringing like a bell after he was thrown against a concrete wall by that... that... **thing** that Stane had built as a copy of his own Iron Man suit. _My suit is a high tech racing car; Stane's is an armored garbage truck. Unfortunately,_ Tony realized, _when garbage trucks run over sports cars, the trucks usually win._

**WHAM!**

Once again, Tony was thrown against a concrete wall, leaving a large, cracked depression. "We've sustained significant structural damage, sir," came JARVIS' refined voice. Tony tried to stumble away, desperate for a few seconds respite so he could get his bearings and figure out how to tackle this opponent.

_Obadiah Stane_, Tony thought. _Friend. Mentor. Practically a father figure for me. What the hell happened? How did we get to this point? What did I miss? When did one of my oldest friends become someone who wanted to __**kill**_ _me?_

"Where do you think you're going, Tony?" Stane asked. "It's time for you to be retired from the board of directors. **Permanently**. I'm here to inform you that your services are no longer required." Lifting up one of his massive arms, Stane began firing large-caliber rounds at Iron Man, driving him backwards by the sheer force of the repeated impacts.

Soon Stane seemed to tire of this and switched back to more personal attacks. Kicking Tony hard enough to send him tumbling over backwards, Stane started to castigate his former friend and partner. "I've been holding you up for the past thirty years, Tony." With the other, massive foot he stomped hard on Tony as he laid on the ground. "I'm the one who built this company up from nothing. Me! Not You!"

Reaching down, he grabbed Tony easily in one metal hand and threw him back into the ground, shattering the concrete. "I'm not going to let you ruin everything. I won't let **anyone** ruin what I've built up!"

In an act of desperation, Tony ignited his boots and launched himself straight into the chest of Stane's suit, pushing them both through a back wall and out onto a busy street. Trucks and cars whipped past the two combatants until Stane grabbed one of the passing cars — one occupied by a woman and children.

"No!" Tony shouted. "Let them go!"

"Why?" Stane asked. "They're collateral damage, Tony, like with all the other weapons built in Stark factories."

* * *

High above the two armored men, on the roof of a nearby building, stood a single woman with glowing green eyes. Her red hair billowed as if in a wind, though the air was still. She'd been observing the fight, trying to measure the capabilities of the two suits. She was already familiar with what the Iron Man suit could do, though it currently looked like it was operating below its optimal performance levels, and this gave her a better idea of what the newer, larger suit could do.

When she saw that monster grab the car, though, she decided that she'd had enough of merely observing. _That monster hurt Hermione_, she thought to herself. _Stane could have killed her. He hurt her without a second thought about having possibly taken such a beautiful soul from the world. It's time for him to pay._

With a twist and a pop, she disappeared from the rooftop as if she'd never been there.

* * *

Stane lifted up the car, preparing to throw it at Tony Stark. The presence of the woman and children didn't matter — as he had told Tony, they were collateral damage. Thousands of people all across the world had already died due to the weapons Stane had designed, built, and sold. _What difference could a couple more make?_ he thought.

Suddenly, a powerful force ripped the car out of his hands. Turning to look behind him, all he could see was a woman with red hair whipping in the wind and wearing a skin-tight black outfit. What made her stand out, though, were her glowing green eyes and the fact that she held out one hand towards the car as if she had taken it from him. Stane flipped through various sensor modes in an attempt to figure out what was going on. All of his systems were blaring warnings about a massive power surge in front of him, approximately where the woman stood, but the type of energy couldn't be identified. _There has to be a malfunction here,_ he thought. _Nothing can produce those kinds of power levels — not even this suit!_

When the levitating car thudded back to earth, the red-headed woman leaned down to the driver and told her, "Drive. Now." Tires squealed as the mother followed that advice, and the woman began moving towards the powered suit that was still standing in the middle of the road.

Stane looked up from his sensor panel and back out the front viewport, finding that the car was gone and that the strange woman had closed to about half her previous distance. She raised her hand and said... something. It sounded to Stane like Latin, but he didn't have time to figure it out because suddenly the entire world was spinning as his suit tumbled backwards, creating another large hole in the wall which he and Tony had broken through a few minutes earlier.

* * *

"JARVIS," Tony exclaimed, "What the **hell** was that?" Tony had been preparing himself to draw Stane away from all the civilians when suddenly Stane was distracted by... and then **blasted** by... some strange, unarmed woman.

"Unknown, sir," came the response. "I read massive amounts of energy emanating from that woman, but I cannot identify what type of energy it is or how she could be generating it."

"Well, what can you tell me?" Tony asked.

After a pause, the computer AI said, "I estimate that it would require a full-power blast from the suit's central chest piece to even approximate that kind of impact on Stane's suit."

"And is there any indication that she's severely depleted her own power reserves?" Tony's famed optimism was falling fast.

"Not even close, sir. The power readings I'm seeing are still off the scale."

"At least we can be thankful that she's mad at **him**, not me. I worry what she'll decide to do once she's done with him."

"Indeed, sir, but perhaps we should help her anyway. Proximity to the woman will give me more data. We'll need to be careful, though, sir. Power for the suit is now down to 20%."

"Good idea, JARVIS." Tony launched himself up above the walls surrounding the courtyard where his fight with Stane had begun, determined to follow and observe the mysterious redhead.

* * *

Agent Coulson stood on the sidewalk, watching Tony Stark fly his Iron Man suit to the top of a nearby wall where he could presumably attack Stane from a safe, elevated position. The normally unflappable agent hadn't been phased by seeing two armored suits fighting in the middle of a busy street. What had caused his eyes to widen and mouth to gape open in shock was seeing Natasha Romanoff — his fellow agent, former student, and maybe even his friend — blast Stane's suit through a wall with nothing but the wave of her hand and a flash of light. And her eyes! Glowing, green eyes!

Coulson knew that Natasha was skilled. He knew she could do some amazing things. Sometimes, when he wasn't looking, she seemed to do the impossible, then she'd shoot him a wink and lopsided smile. This, however... this was something he'd have to call in.

Pulling out his phone, he hit the emergency button that connected him directly to Nick Fury.

"What is it, Coulson? Is that situation with Stane and Stark handled?"

"No, sir. Stane and Stark have been fighting, using their armored suits. They've been creating quite a mess."

"Do you need backup?" Fury asked impatiently. "Where's Romanoff?"

"Uh, Romanoff's the reason why I called you. Something's happened to her. I'm not sure how to explain..."

Fury was silent for a few seconds, then asked, "Did you get a good look at her, Coulson? Were her eyes glowing? Was she making weird shit happen around her?"

Surprised, Coulson answered, "Yes, Director. That's exactly what happened. How did you..."

"Never mind, Coulson. Your new orders right now are to follow and observe Agent Romanoff. Do not engage. Do not initiate contact. Do not interfere, unless innocent civilians are being threatened. Try not to lose her. And definitely avoid pissing her off. You got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I'm on my way to your location right now. I'll be there inside of two hours. Fury out."

Coulson looked down at his cell phone in disbelief. _First Natasha does something completely inexplicable, then Fury not only knows about it, but acts like he's been expecting it... or perhaps dreading it. What the hell is going on?_

Not knowing what else to do, Coulson followed Fury's orders and began making his way towards Natasha's last known location.

* * *

When Stane's suit finally stopped tumbling, it was his turn for his head to be ringing. Totally confused, he had no idea what had happened. He hadn't seen any weapons at all, never mind one firing at him. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen. He was certain, though, that that woman had something to do with it.

_I'll have to teach her a lesson_, he concluded.

Struggling back to his feet, he recognized that he was where he'd first started pounding on Tony in his Iron Man suit. Looking around, he also saw that strange woman walking through a giant hole in the wall — a hole Stane figured his suit must have just made.

Narrowing his eyes, he called out, "I guess I have you to thank for what happened to me. I'm impressed. I didn't think that anything could cause such problems for this suit. Mind telling me how you did it?" He might not have known what she did or how she did it, but he was certain that she would be screaming for mercy in about two minutes.

The woman didn't respond. She didn't say anything. She didn't even give any indication that she'd heard the question. She just kept walking... no, _stalking_ towards Stane. If he'd had a bit more sense, Stane would have realized that the woman was hunting. And that he was her prey.

"Well, would you mind telling me your name, at least, and why you foolishly decided to stick your nose into my business? You know, before I kill you?" Stane was used to getting his way with bluster and bullying, especially when dealing with smaller women.

Now the woman stopped. Standing about twenty yards from Stane, she cocked her head slightly and said, "No, I don't think I'll tell you my name. You don't deserve it. I will, however, tell you why I am here, now, doing this."

"Oh?" Stane asked, trying to buy a little time while the onboard computers attempted to figure out what sort of power she'd been using and how it might be countered.

"Yes. You hurt someone I care about. Someone I care very, very deeply about."

"What, that's it?" Stane asked incredulously. "This is about petty revenge?"

Narrowing her eyes, she responded in a low, menacing voice, "There is nothing petty about my feelings. I have battled and killed monsters for her. I have walked through fire for her. I have fought hordes of demons for her. In her name I have flown against dragons. I literally walked to my death and surrendered my life, all for her sake."

"Death?" Stane asked, doubt and sarcasm dripping from his voice. "You look alive to me. For the moment, at least."

In her first expression of positive emotion, she quirked one side of her mouth and said, "I got better." She returned to her hard, steely gaze before saying, "You, however, will not."

Raising his suit's thick metal arms, Stane growled out, "You think you can take..."

Before he could finish his sentence, the woman whipped up her own arm and again said something that sounded like Latin. He had no chance to stop his suit from being propelled backwards with incredible force, smashing the wall behind him and setting his head to ringing once more.

Struggling to his feet again, he looked around and couldn't see her anywhere. Then his proximity alarm started screaming, letting him know that someone had climbed up on the back of his suit. "You!" he screamed. "Come here!" He tried reaching around to grab her, but he hadn't designed the arms to reach his back. It wouldn't have mattered much anyway because he heard that funny-sounding Latin and his suit's right hand was blasted into scrap. Warning light indicators started flashing all over his console.

She nimbly jumped down on his right side where he couldn't easily reach her, but he tried anyway to grab her with the suit's left hand. "Hold still, you little bitch." As she jumped away, he saw her wave her hand, a light flashed, and his suit's left hand was blasted into scrap, too. After a few more Latin words and some more lights, the guns mounted on his arms were destroyed as well. A couple more Latin words, and the massive armored legs of his suit were cut cleanly off at the knees, causing the mangled torso of his suit to tumble to the ground face first. Electrical sparks arced across the ends of the suit's smashed and severed limbs while hydraulic fluids pooled underneath the body.

Stane's fingers moved furiously over his controls in a desperate attempt to get something to work, but nothing seemed to function. Screaming in impotent rage, he beat his fists against the non-responsive console when he felt his suit lift off the ground, spin, and drop on its back. He could see the woman climb up on his chest,and with a wave of her hand, she seemed to rip the face plate off his suit.

She glared furiously down at him, her hair still undulating in some sort of wind, but Stane could tell now that there was no wind at all. Not even a gentle breeze.

As Stane looked up into her glowing green eyes, he recognized that she felt no pity for him. She felt no remorse, either for what she had done to him so far or for what she was about to do to him.

Then she smiled.

* * *

The anger and power pulsing through her were intoxicating. She hadn't felt like this in a decade, and it was such a **rush**. A part of her couldn't understand why she had voluntarily turned her back on this, while another part was screaming out warnings about how horrible this was all going and how much danger she was in. She ignored both, preferring instead to simply revel in the feeling. She would avenge Hermione. This worm would never hurt anyone ever again.

And then... and then... well, it didn't matter right now. No one would be able to stop her, whatever she decided.

"Who... who are you," Stane managed to sputter out.

Kneeling down, bringing her face close enough for him to feel her breath, she whispered, "I am the Mistress of Death. Tonight, I am here for **you**."

She could see in his eyes that Obadiah Stane finally believed her. It would be his last conscious, coherent thought.

* * *

Tony Stark had flown his Iron Man suit up to the top of a wall so he could use the high ground to assist the strange woman. He didn't want to get any closer to either her or Stane than he had to, and JARVIS needed a position that would provide the maximum amount of data.

He expected to help the woman stop Stane. Instead, he found himself wondering if perhaps he should help Stane against the woman. After smashing him against a wall, ruining the suit's hands, destroying the arm-mounted weapons, and cutting through the legs — all with some hand waving and a bit of a light show — she then spun him over, climbed on his chest, and started... torturing him. At least, it looked like torture. At first she punched him in the face a few times, but then she put her hands on either side of his head and he started screaming.

Not even in his worst nightmares had Tony ever heard screaming like that.

As much as he wanted Stane to pay for all the he'd done, torture wasn't something Tony Stark could condone. He had to intervene... but the idea of saving Obadiah Stane after the man had tried to kill him was irritating, to say the least.

"I'm going to have to go down there and do something, JARVIS. Got any advice?" he asked his computer AI.

"I'm sorry sir, but no, nothing beyond what I've already told you. The new data derived from her most recent actions is as indecipherable as the old data. It may take weeks for me to get anywhere with it."

"Right," Tony said resignedly. "Here we go..."

Jumping down into what had started as a courtyard but had since become more of a gladiatorial arena, he walked towards the other two until he was about ten yards away before calling out, "Hey, you — Red! Stop what you're doing."

Amazingly, she actually stopped, which made Tony feel optimistic... until she slowly turned her head towards him and he looked right into her glowing green eyes. It struck him that they didn't look entirely human. In a cold, terrible voice she asked, "And why should I?"

"Uh..." Tony suddenly had trouble remembering why she should stop, but pressed on. "Look, I have more cause to hate him than anyone else, I think, and I want him punished. But not like this. Not tortured. If you don't stop, I'm going to have to stop you."

The woman simply laughed at him, and with a flick of her hand, he was sent flying backwards against one of the walls. _Dammit_, Tony thought, _my head is ringing again_.

"Sir," the computer AI spoke up, "we were hit with considerably less force than I detected her using in earlier strikes. Had she used the same force as she did previously, I do not believe the suit would have survived, given its current level of damage."

"So what you're saying," Tony responded as he got back on his feet, "is that she held back that time. That she was being _gentle_ with us."

"That seems to be the case, sir."

"Great," Tony muttered. "Just great." As he started walking forward again, hoping that he'd come up with a plan before he got too close, he heard a familiar voice approaching. "Tony! Natasha! Where are you?"

Suddenly, Pepper entered the courtyard. On the **other side** of the dangerous woman and Stane's suit. There was no way Tony could get to her before this woman did. "Pepper!" he cried out. "Get out of here! Run!"

Completely ignoring him, Pepper focused instead on the woman. "Natasha! There you are!"

_Natasha? Wait, do they know each other? _Tony asked himself. _What did I miss?_

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked angrily. "I told you to watch Hermione!"

"I did. I stayed by her side until the paramedics came. They have her stabilized and are preparing to take her to the hospital. I thought you might want to go with her."

The green-eyed woman practically flew to Pepper's side, asking "Where? Take me to her!"

Grabbing the woman's arm, Pepper pulled her in the direction she had come from, leaving a thoroughly confused Tony Stark standing there, wondering what to do next.

A noise drew Tony's attention to the other side of the now-ruined courtyard, where he could see Agent Coulson approaching.

"Did you catch all that, Agent Coulson?" Tony asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Do you know what's going on? Because some of that... hell, **most** of that was impossible."

"No, sorry, I don't have a clue. You'll have to ask Director Fury."

"Where are you going?" he asked as the agent kept moving in the direction the two women had left.

"I have orders to follow and observe her," Coulson answered.

"What, that's it?" Tony asked incredulously. "You're simply going to watch her?"

"Well," Coulson added as he reached the door, "I'm also supposed to avoid pissing her off." With that, he was gone, and Tony was once more left alone.

"Yeah," Tony mumbled to himself, "Good luck with that."


	3. Reunions

**Chapter 3 - Reunions**

She sat next to the hospital bed, staring at Hermione's face, unaware of the passage of time or of anything else going on around her. _She looks so pale_, the woman thought. _She looks so vulnerable and frail lying there. They say she's going to pull through and be fine, but sitting here looking at her, it's so hard to believe it. Again._

Taking in a deep breath, she thought back to her decision to chase down and punish Stane rather than stay by Hermione. _Maybe that was a mistake_, she considered. _Maybe I should have stayed there with her, tried to heal her more. I'm sure I could have, by using brute force if nothing else. Maybe I could have apparated us directly to a hospital. Maybe I could have found a medical kit somewhere..._

"No," she said forcefully and out loud. "This isn't the time for 'what ifs.' What's done is done. It wouldn't help Hermione for me to brood over past decisions. She always hated my brooding anyway. All that matters is what I can do for her now, if anything. All that matters is to be here for her."

A nurse walked in to check Hermione's vitals. Normally the woman would have been aware of this nurse's approach from at least halfway down the hall, but right now she had barely noticed her before the door opened. The auburn-haired woman's entire existence had narrowed down to just the person lying in the hospital bed: Hermione Granger, once her best friend.

"Anything new?" the green-eyed woman asked the nurse.

"No, sorry, no change. But everything is stable. We still expect her to be fine."

It had been eighteen hours since they had arrived in the hospital. That meant... over thirty hours since she had last slept. _Good thing I can get by on only a couple of hours sleep per night_, she thought.

The paramedics hadn't wanted to let her ride along in the ambulance at first, but Pepper had convinced them to change their minds. _I don't know how she managed to do that, but I'm glad she did. I didn't want to have to hurt them. _They had only been doing their job, but they had been trying to stand between her and Hermione.

She scooted her chair a little closer to the bed and reached out, taking the unconscious woman's hand in her own. "Can you hear me, Hermione?" she asked softly. "Do you know I'm here? Can you feel my presence? Of course not. You're going to be so mad when you wake up, but I don't care, so long as you do wake up."

She sniffed a couple of times before continuing, "I'm so sorry, Hermione. I know that apologies won't cover what I've done to you, but I **am** sorry. Sometimes I wish I could take it back and do it all over, but I can't. And, at the end of the day, I still think I probably did the right thing, no matter how much it hurt both of us. I needed to go. I had too much blood on my hands. There was too much red — much too much to ever wash away. And then there was the power... so much power, and so addictive. It was difficult to control, something that I was reminded of rather forcefully yesterday. I thought you were all in danger so long as I was around — whether from my enemies or, eventually, maybe from me. I figured you'd be safer and happier if I simply left."

Tears started to fall now. "But **I** wasn't. I managed to ignore it and avoid thinking about it for a long time, but now that you're here, I can't anymore. Looking back, if I'm going to be honest, I have to admit that I haven't been happy for ten years. I've existed, but I still haven't lived. I haven't been truly happy since that last afternoon I spent with you after the Final Battle, sitting by the Black Lake and enjoying your company.

"Sometimes... sometimes I fear that that was the last time in my life that I'll ever be happy." She began to struggle with her voice. "Sometimes I wish I... I had had the courage then to ki... to tell you that I... that I lo..."

Behind her, she heard footsteps outside the door — footsteps that didn't belong to the nurse. Luckily for the person there, she recognized them. Sniffing hard, she quickly wiped the tears from her face and gathered herself together. "Hello, Agent Coulson," she said without turning around when the door opened.

Coulson wasn't surprised that Natasha could identify him without looking, but he was a little taken aback by her cold, formal tone. She hadn't done that since he'd trained her, shortly after she had joined S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Natasha, it's time to go. You're needed back at headquarters for a full debriefing."

"No."

"Wh-what?" he asked. He wasn't prepared for such an abrupt refusal.

Slowly turning her head to face him, but never taking her hand from Hermione's, she fixed Coulson with a cold stare. "I said no. I will not be leaving her so long as she is injured. I am staying here so I can watch over her." Turning back to Hermione, she finished, "You can leave now, Agent Coulson."

Remembering his final instruction about not pissing her off, he slowly backed out of the room. He needed to talk to Director Fury about this.

* * *

Time passed. She had no idea how much and she didn't care. All that mattered was that Hermione hadn't woken yet. Soon there were more footsteps outside the door, but she didn't recognize them. She tensed until she heard the voices — there was no mistaking those.

"I'm telling you, Pepper, that nurse was hitting on me. She only wanted me to stay here in the hospital longer so she could get at my body. I had no choice but to check myself out. It was a question of self-preservation, I'm telling you."

"Tony, don't be ridiculous. There's nothing there worth getting excited about."

There was a moment of silence after they entered. No one knew quite what to say, but then Pepper started back up as if the silence never happened. "Natasha! I'm glad to see you're still alright. How is Hermione doing? They wouldn't tell us... Oh, I don't think you've been formally introduced — Natasha, this is Tony Stark. Tony, this is Natasha. She's a friend of Hermione."

She didn't offer her hand but merely nodded. "We have met, but not formally. It looks like you got a bit banged up, Mr. Stark."

Tony grimaced a little, but quickly shifted to a smile that looked almost pasted on. "Yeah, well, hazards of the job. I think you must know about them. But look at you, you're holding up remarkably well. Did you even get a scratch?"

A little of her reserve dropped away as the corner of her mouth twitched. "I think I broke a fingernail the second or third time I punched Stane in the face." She looked down at her free hand and started to buff it against her chest. "Otherwise, no." Looking up and seeing the concerned looks on their faces, she added, "OK, I'll admit that beating a man with my fists when he's already down is a bit... primitive." She looked over at Hermione's prone form, then continued, "But I had good reason to do so. And it was quite satisfying." Glancing back, she noticed that they didn't seem to be any happier.

Sighing, she addressed Tony directly, "Mr. Stark, come find me if Stane proves unwilling to cooperate. Or unable. I ripped quite a bit of information out of his mind, some of which you'll want to know." From the ensuing look on Tony's face, it was clear that he was struggling between curiosity and horror.

Pepper seemed to sense the mounting tension between them, because she abruptly turned and said, "Tony, would you go get me some coffee? Please? I'm beat and need to stay awake for a while longer."

Looking a bit dubious, but apparently unwilling to deny anything to the woman who had helped him for so long, he agreed. "Sure, uh, do you remember where I can find some coffee? Never mind, I think I saw a coffee shop across the street. I'll go and, uh, buy it."

Once he was gone, Pepper walked over and stood on the other side of the hospital bed from Natasha. She looked down and took in the women's intertwined hands for a few moments, then looked back up at Natasha's face. The evidence of recent crying was not hard to see. "Is she going to be alright?" Pepper asked gently.

Natasha had to take a deep breath before answering. "The doctors told me she would be. I just... it's hard to believe them when I sit here and see how frail she looks. I feel so helpless..."

"So, how you two know each other?"

The silence that followed lasted so long that Pepper began fidget, and even started to open her mouth to change the subject, but then Natasha continued. "We went to school together as kids. Boarding school in Scotland. Small, exclusive. Invitation only."

"Wow. You two were close, I take it?"

"All through our teen years, we were the best of friends. Inseparable. Even saved each other's lives a few times. In fact, this isn't the first time I've sat at her bedside, worrying and waiting for her to awaken." She was quiet for a bit before whispering, "She meant everything to me."

Moving around to the other side of the bed, Pepper knelt beside the distraught woman and took her free hand. "I'm sure it will be alright. If you want, I'll ask Tony to call in specialists. We'll get the absolute best people in the country to look at her, if you want. And I'll sit with you until they get here."

She looked down, surprised at Pepper's generosity and compassion. It was something she hadn't experienced in quite some time, and she had trouble figuring out how to respond. Eventually, she laid a hand lightly on Pepper's should and thanked her. Then she tried to explain why that wouldn't be necessary. "I'll be fine — really. I know in my head that Hermione will be alright. It's hard to accept in here," she said, pointing to her heart. "I don't think I'll fully believe it until I see her open her eyes and I hear her voice again."

Pepper smiled and nodded knowingly. After a moment, she stood and pulled out a business card. "OK, if you're sure. Here are direct numbers for me and Tony — call us anytime if you need anything. And I do mean **anything**. We're both in your debt, and you're a friend of someone Tony thinks highly of. We take good care of our friends. Now, I'd better get going before Tony does buy the coffee shop."

"Better hurry," Natasha said as Pepper headed for the door. "I'm pretty sure that coffee shop across the street is a Starbucks."

It wasn't, but watching Pepper squeak and run off in a panic had been too funny to resist.

* * *

More time passed. At some point, she started to feel eyes on her, but she wasn't sure where from, exactly. She just knew they were there. She had been expecting them, but earlier than this. _Slackers_, she thought.

Not long after, she heard recognizable footsteps outside the door. She'd been expecting them earlier, too. She was glad he was alone; that promised a relatively peaceful encounter.

She didn't bother to speak when he entered the room, nor when he approached and stood beside the bed. Neither of them were much for chit-chat.

"Time to go, Iris. We need to debrief you."

Her head whipped around to look at Director Fury. "That's not my name anymore, **Nick**. I left that name behind a long, long time ago. You know that — you helped me become Natasha."

"Yeah, well, I think you left behind Natasha Romanoff yesterday evening. I think it was about the same time you sent a machine heavier than a truck crashing through a concrete wall with little more than the wave of your hand. That's not something that Natasha Romanoff can do. You have to be Iris Potter, The Woman Who Conquered, to do such things."

She looked down and away, unsure about how to respond to that and unhappy at being reminded about one of her many titles.

"And don't think I didn't hear that you didn't need to use a wand to do any of that shit, too. How long have you been able to do wandless magic of that magnitude, and when were you going to tell me?" Fury's questions were met with stony silence.

"That's what I thought. Look, I wish I could leave you here to watch over your friend. Honest, I do. I know what it's like when a buddy's injured and you have to sit by their bed, wondering what's going to happen. I **know**. But I still have a job to do, and so do you. My job at the moment is to collect all the data and put together a coherent picture for security analysis. Your job is to give me the data you have. I need to know what you saw, what you did, and why you did it."

Moving around the bed to stand beside her, he put his hand gently on her shoulder and was happy to find that she didn't tense up. He didn't want a fight. "I need your report, Iris. I need you to come inbfor a little while, and then you can come back here. I promise."

She considered for a moment, then looked up and asked, "Can we do it here in the hospital? Close by? I don't want to go far."

Nick Fury narrowed his eye at that request. He wanted to say no, because they weren't in a secure facility, but Natasha... no, **Iris**, now, almost never asked for anything. "OK, I can give you that. Be ready in an hour. I'll have Coulson fetch you — just don't bite his head off this time."

Without another word, Fury strode out of the hospital room. Exactly one hour later, Coulson reappeared and led her to another room down the hall where she was debriefed over the course of three hours and five cups of bad coffee.

Upon returning to Hermione's hospital room, she pushed open the door and froze in place. There, sitting up in her bed, was Hermione Granger, awake and chatting away happily with Pepper.


	4. Reconciliation

**Chapter 4 - Reconciliation**

_She hasn't seen me yet_, the green-eyed woman thought. _I can leave. I can run. She'll never know. She doesn't know the name Natasha, so she'll never know it was me. I can disappear again without hurting her. It's now or never._

That moment of opportunity came and went in an instant. Hermione and Pepper both looked over at the open door and recognized the newcomer. "Iris?" Hermione half-whispered, half-shouted in shock; "Natasha!" Pepper said in relief. The two women turned and looked at each other in confusion, then both looked back at the woman in the doorway. It was clear to them that she felt like a deer caught in the headlights.

Pepper, noticing that something was wrong, stood up and took a step towards the door. "Natasha? Is everything alright? I came back after sending Tony home and decided to wait when I saw that you were gone. Hermione woke up not long after, and we started chatting. She didn't seem to know anyone with your name, not even when I mentioned your old school."

"Iris?" Hermione called out softly. "That is you, isn't it? I thought I recognized Pepper's description, but I was afraid to hope that it could be you. Please, Iris, don't run again."

The woman was already starting to lean backwards, out the door, when a voice from behind startled her. "Do you ladies need anything?" Jumping forward and spinning, she faced the threat that had appeared out of nowhere. _Dammit!_, she thought, _I was so focused on Hermione that I completely lost any sense of my surroundings!_

Fortunately, the "threat" was Tony with flowers.

"Tony!" Pepper came over to him, scolding. "I sent you home!"

"Yeah, well, you did. And I got there. But then I remembered that we didn't bring flowers before, and that's what you're supposed to do, right? So here you go," he said, holding out an elaborate bouquet.

Rolling her eyes, she took the flowers, shoved them at Natasha — Iris? — and started pushing Tony back out the door. "Since you're back now, Natasha, Hermione doesn't need me hanging around. Bye!"

With that, they were gone, leaving her alone in the room with Hermione. She quickly spun around to face the bed but felt a bit foolish standing there holding a bouquet of flowers in front of her. "Uh," she started, looking around for something to put them in.

"Iris?" Hermione said, "Come over here. Sit." Automatically Iris did as she was told, setting the bouquet on the bedside table. Taking orders from Hermione was something that had become ingrained in her during her years at Hogwarts.

Leaning forward from her sitting position on her bed, Hermione reached out with one hand and began tracing the lines of Iris' face. "It's you, but... it's not. The differences are subtle, but I can see each one. Is this a spell?" Moving her hand up, she gently caressed Iris' forehead. "And your scar, what happened to it? I thought nothing could remove traces of dark magic like that."

"Muggle plastic surgery," Iris answered. "Best technology, best people. The more subtle the changes, the better and more realistic the results."

Looking into her friend's green eyes, Hermione asked, "What was the last thing I said to you before you walked into the black flames?"

Iris closed her eyes at the intense emotions that washed over her at the memory of that night. It was one of many memories she both cherished and avoided. It was also an obvious security question to ask; she certainly hadn't ever told anyone about that final conversation before she rushed off in her youthful ignorance to face Voldemort, and she was sure Hermione never had either. It was too... private. Too personal.

Opening her eyes again and seeing Hermione waiting patiently for an answer, she said, "Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things... friendship and bravery and..."

Nodding, Hermione leaned back, truly accepting now that this was indeed Iris Potter in front of her and not an imposter or, worse yet, another hallucination. Taking a deep breath, she proceeded to speak in a low, quiet voice that was far harsher and more punishing than any amount of shouting could possibly have achieved. "Iris. Callidora. Potter. How **could** you?"

With every hissed word, Iris withdrew further in on herself, hunching her shoulders, bowing her head, and pulling her arms tightly against herself. Gone was the proud warrior who defiantly stood in opposition to whatever challenges that were thrown against her. All that remained was a shy, quiet girl who was guilt-ridden, deeply ashamed, and completely passive before the wrath of the person she had wronged the most.

"You left us. You left **me**! You never said a word. You didn't say goodbye and you didn't give any reasons. You just... disappeared. I didn't know if you were alive or dead. For **years** I searched for you. For more years I followed up every lead that was sent to me. And for years, I've dreamed of what I would say to you. I've imagined all the things I would yell and scream..." Abruptly she deflated. "But now... now I don't know what to say. Everything that comes to mind seems so inadequate."

Sighing heavily, she tried to compose herself. "You hurt me, Iris. Disappearing like that, you hurt all of us, but I think you hurt me most of all. You... you..." She stopped and seemed to remember something. "You're this Natasha woman that Pepper was talking about, aren't you? Yes, she called you Natasha. You're the one who got so angry when I was hurt. You... you did something to me to help keep me alive, didn't you." Iris only nodded, unable to speak.

"Well, there's that, I suppose — lets me know that you didn't leave because you hated me." Iris looked up, but Hermione kept going. "Don't look at me like that. What was I supposed to think? You left without a word, so why not imagine that you left because you couldn't stand the sight of me and couldn't wait to get away from the bossy little know-it-all?"

In all her self-induced guilt, that scenario was one that had never occurred to Iris. Putting her hand over her mouth, she dropped her head back down and began to sob.

"Some things are starting to make sense to me now," Hermione said coldly. "Iris, do you remember when I was petrified by the basilisk and spent nearly a month in the hospital wing?" Iris was confused at this sudden change of direction, but nodded. That had been an awful month for her, and she'd not easily forget it.

"Did I ever tell you later that I heard you? I knew that you visited me not only every day, but that you snuck in late at night, too. I could hear you talking to me, telling me things. I could almost imagine you holding my hand while you were doing it." Hermione looked a bit wistfully at the ceiling. "I think your words and presence helped keep me from going insane, trapped there in my own mind."

Iris hadn't known that. She'd made those visits more for her own sanity than anything else, but she was pleased to learn, even after all these years, that they had been such a help to Hermione. Still, she was puzzled as to why she would bring up that incident now.

"I never understood why I could hear you. According to healers and experts on petrifications, victims aren't aware of anything going on around them. I shouldn't have heard anything." She stopped and seemed to consider her next words carefully. "Now I think I have a better idea of why. Apparently, when I'm unconscious, in a coma, or in any other similar state, I can hear you when you're nearby and talking to me. You, Iris." She made a point of catching Iris' green eyes. "**Always.**"

Iris' mouth opened as she went still. She now realized that Hermione could only be talking about one thing: she had **heard**. And she **remembered**. When pouring out her heart to Hermione's prone form earlier, Iris had thought that she was simply unburdening herself, talking to Hermione without having to deal with the consequences that her words would bring if they were heard and understood.

Turns out, she was wrong. After a decade of running , she would finally have to start dealing with those consequences.

Shifting topics again, although in Hermione's mind it seemed to all be one and the same, she went on, "Does anyone around you today know you, Iris? Does anyone know your history? Your fears? Your nightmares? Is there anyone in your life anymore who knows **you**?"

Iris shook her head and whispered, "No, not really. My boss knows the most. He's figured out more than I've explicitly told him, in fact, but he doesn't know everything. No one does, not since you."

Shaking her head sadly, Hermione responded, "So you're still hiding, then. You got a new face and a new identity, you even got rid of that scar you hated so much; but you're still hiding from everyone, even those closest to you." She paused for a moment, then continued, "Why, Iris? Even though I hated you sometimes for leaving, I always hoped and dreamed that you had started over. That you had finally found the peace and happiness that had been denied you all throughout your childhood... and even that that was why you had left. But you didn't find any of that. You left, and for what? Why are you still hiding?"

Sobbing softly, Iris answered so quietly that Hermione almost missed it. "I was scared."

Leaning forward again, Hermione asked in a similarly quiet voice, "Scared? Of what?"

"Of screwing up again," she answered. "When I left, it was to protect you and to find myself — to find some peace for myself. As I learned more about myself, though, the more I realized how massively I screwed up by leaving. I realized how much I must have hurt you. All I could feel was pain and shame over what I had done, and that was on top of the guilt I felt from the war. I was too ashamed to go back, so I worked to suppress all my feelings and pretend everything was fine. I managed well enough, I suppose, but I was always too scared and ashamed to ever let anyone get close to me again. I didn't want to take the chance of screwing up again."

Having spent enough of her anger and grief, Hermione reached out her arms to Iris and said, "Come here." The two women embraced, though not too tightly as Hermione was still sore from her injuries. They held each other for a while, both sobbing over past mistakes.

* * *

Phil Coulson, Maria Hill, and Nick Fury stared intently at the silent images on the monitor in front of them. They hadn't had time to wire the room for sound, but a lot of information could be gleaned from video, with or without sound, and that was what Fury was doing.

"Sir..." Coulson began hesitantly. "It seems that there is a lot more to Natash... er, Iris, I guess, than I ever knew. But I take it you knew?"

Fury nodded as he leaned back in his chair to look at Coulson. "Yes, there's quite a lot more there than meets the eye. More than I know, even, though I've been trying. I'm going to have to bump up your security clearance by several levels to give you access to everything, but for now know that her real name is Iris Callidora Potter. She is a former British citizen. She has powers that no one seems able to entirely explain. And she is a potential liability of gargantuan proportions."

"Liability, sir?" Hill asked. "But she's always been loyal. Annoying, perhaps, but loyal."

"Loyal? Yes. But why? And for how long?" Leaning forward again, he focused on the image of Iris on the monitor. "She is not an ideologue. She is not a patriot. She is not a nationalist. As far as I have ever been able to tell, she has no ideology, religion, or belief system that she's committed to. What she is, is a ticking time bomb that's waiting to explode." Looking back over his shoulder at his agents, he continued, "You experienced a small taste of what such an explosion might be like, Coulson. You saw what happens when she starts to lose control. What would happen if she exploded and went rogue?"

Coulson blanched. There were contingencies for what to do if any top operative, especially one with special skills, went rogue. That included Natasha, now Iris, but did those contingency plans take into account the powers she had demonstrated? **Could** they?

"I know what you're thinking," Fury said in response to the unasked question, "and we've tried. I've had teams working on the problem off and on ever since she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. None of them could come up with reliable countermeasures to what we **knew **she could do, never mind whatever it is that she's been keeping from us. We've tried to get advice from people with similar abilities as hers, but we haven't had a lot of luck with that so far."

"There are more like her?" Hill asked, startled at this news.

"Well... not quite like her. She's special, though I'm not sure how or why. But similar, yes. They live in small, insular communities and generally don't like to interact with outsiders. They aren't usually much of a threat, so we only keep loose tabs on them. Iris is the first that we've ever had working for us, in fact."

"So... what do we do about her?" Coulson asked.

Fury tapped the computer screen as he pointed a finger at the woman in the hospital bed. "Her," he announced. "She's the key to controlling Iris. Have you noticed how our girl has been behaving in there? Have you looked at her body language?" he asked while looking back at Coulson and Hill again.

After a moment's consideration, the others started to see Fury's point. Hill spoke first. "She's been acting subdued. Regretful. I've seen none of the normally defiant, aggressive, confident Natasha."

"Exactly," Fury said in a satisfied tone. "That woman comes from the same community as Iris. We have files on her because she's been working out in the normal world, but I want those file updated." Turning to Hill, he added "And I want her working for S.H.I.E.L.D., if possible. That's your job, Hill. Find out more about her and then get her on board. The more control we have over her, the more control we'll have over Iris. Do whatever you have to, but get her."

"Sir," Coulson said, thinking harder about the body language Fury had drawn their attention to. "I think that there might be more than just friendly feelings between those two. Or at least there could be in the future."

"I know, and I don't give a damn," Fury replied. "As long as they do their job... as long as _she _is under control rather than a bomb waiting to explode, then I'll sleep better at night."

"When you get back to base, Coulson, your new security clearance will be active. Yours too, Hill." Both nodded at him. "Coulson, I want you to go through all of Iris Potter's files. Organize them into something coherent and memorize them. I'll need you to know everything. She's Iris Potter now, not Natasha Romanoff, so we can expect her to start using her powers a lot more from now on. Then I'll want you to get with Hill to compare notes on Iris and Hermione. You two will have to be our experts on those women and what they can do."

Fury rubbed his chin, thinking hard, before he added, "I think we need to bump Potter up to the top of the list for the Avengers Initiative. I'll have to give serious thought to adding Granger, as well."

Looking back and forth between his agents, he finally said, "Well, you've got your assignments. Get moving!"

"Yes, sir," they both said before they exited the small, darkened room.

* * *

Eventually, Hermione pulled back a little, still holding Iris but able to look into her eyes. Placing a hand against her cheek, she asked, "Do you remember that last day at Hogwarts when we sat by the Black Lake?" Iris tried to look away, embarrassed because she now knew that Hermione had heard her earlier words; but Hermione used her hand to force Iris to face her.

"Do you remember?" she asked again softly, their faces mere inches apart. When Iris nodded, she continued, "If you had kissed me then, I wouldn't have pulled away."

Iris' eyes widened before Hermione leaned in and kissed her. There were no fireworks. The earth didn't move. Angels didn't descend from heaven and begin to sing. But Iris thought it was the best kiss she'd ever had.

Pulling back, Hermione said, "I don't forgive you, not yet at least. You're going to have to work hard to earn my forgiveness. And you're going to have to work just as hard to rebuild a friendship with me, because we can't simply go back to what we had as if nothing happened." Iris nodded at all of this, surprised that she was being given even this much of a chance. "I'm telling you all this," Hermione continued, "because that kiss... our **first **kiss... will also be our **last **kiss unless and until you do all of that. Understand?"

Iris nodded again, starting to feel happy for the first time in years.

Hermione lay back down on the bed and yawned. "I'm knackered. I'm not fully healed yet and still need to sleep. Will you be here when I wake?"

"Of course," Iris answered hoarsely, grabbing and squeezing Hermione's hand. "I'm not going anywhere. Never again. I'll watch over you for as long as you need it. I promise."

And she did. While Hermione slept, Iris watched. And both started to heal.

* * *

Sitting alone now, Fury watched the screen for another minute before turning it off. "Definitely more than just friendly feelings," he murmured thoughtfully.


	5. Enter Iris Potter, Mistress of Death

**A/N**: I don't generally approve of responding to reviews in the body of a chapter, but a negative review raised a complaint that I expected to see a lot more of: this isn't "really" Natasha because she acts nothing like Natasha. Well... yes, that's true. But you know, changing comic characters and their origins is normal. You know that Nick Fury guy? Believe it or not, he used to be _white_. It's true! And Obadiah Stane, the antagonist in this story? Originally, his character owned a separate, competing company. No lie! And have you seen the most recent Fantastic Four movie? Doesn't look to me like the same origins as in the comics.

In merging Iris and Natasha, I couldn't keep all of one or the other without it being pointless. In this short story, you're seeing more of Iris because... it's when Iris comes out from behind the Natasha mask. So it kind of makes sense for those aspects of her character to dominate right now. Later there will be more of a mix, but it'll always be a bit more Iris than Natasha. That's partly because I'm making her "my" character, not simply imitating what others have done, and partly because of her radically different origin/history.

I'm changing the MCU by introducing a "Natasha" who not only has magic, but also all the emotional and psychological baggage (good and bad) of a female Harry Potter (plus some tweaks). Because I like character-driven stories, I'll be treating the baggage as being at least as important as the magic. Magic is a plot device to give the characters something to do; the baggage is what makes them interesting enough that we care about what they are doing. All of this is pretty fundamental to what I'm writing and why, so I thought it was worth explaining thathere.

* * *

**Chapter 5 - Enter Iris Potter, Mistress of Death, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.**

"Are you sure about this, Iris?" asked Hermione as she brushed her fingers through her friend's hair in a futile attempt to get it to lie flat and straight.

"I'm sure, Hermione. It's time."

"But you've been Natasha Romanoff for so long. Are you ready to cast her aside?" Hermione was worried that Iris would eventually come to see this as a mistake and then blame her for it.

"Natasha was a mask," Iris explained. "I guess you could say that I tried to be her, but never succeeded. At any rate, Natasha ceased to exist when I started casting spells in the middle of a fight in downtown Los Angeles. So it's time for her to die officially."

"Do you think anyone will buy it?" Hermione asked, still struggling with Iris' hair, much like she had done when they were teenagers.

"That Natasha is dead? Our enemies probably won't, but that means they'll waste time and resources trying — and failing — to track her down. Let them chase a ghost. Will they buy that Natasha is now Iris? Those who are told will accept it; the rest will believe that I'm someone different. You'd be surprised at how many people will be fooled by my letting my hair go darker like it used to be. My only friend knows and accepts the truth, that's what matters."

Hermione stopped her efforts for a moment. "Don't you have any friends here?"

Iris shrugged. "There are a few people I'm somewhat close to, but not as close as I still am to you. None of them know me anywhere near as well as you still know me."

Resuming her work, Hermione sighed. "You should make closer friends with the people you work with. It's not right that someone you haven't seen in a decade knows you better than people you work with on a daily basis."

"It's not the amount of time you spend around a person, Hermione, it's what you do with that time. Besides, soon I'll have you at work." By this point, the effort to straighten Iris' hair had evolved into little more than affectionate stroking, causing Iris to lean into Hermione's hand.

"You're assuming that I'll take the job offer from S.H.I.E.L.D. I haven't decided yet, one way or the other. I'll have you know that I like working for Tony Stark."

Iris smirked. "Oh, you'll take it."

"How can you know?" Hermione asked indignantly. "Are you even sure that you want me here? That you want to be working so close with me?"

Iris had started purring at Hermione's ministrations. "I'm sure. I want you anywhere, any way that I can get you." Feeling the brunette witch abruptly still, Iris quickly grabbed the hand that was against the side of her head and hastened to add, "I know you still need more time. That's OK. I hurt you too much, so I'm not going to push you or make assumptions about us. I'm following your lead and letting **you** make the decisions about what you are and are not comfortable with."

Looking deep into Hermione's brown eyes, she said, "That's what I meant: I'm willing to take whatever you're willing to let me have."

Smiling, the brunette relaxed and whispered, "Thank you."

"However," Iris added, "that doesn't mean that I will avoid expressing my preferences in the matter." At Hermione's inquisitive look, she went on, "Well, wasn't it my failure to communicate my feelings which helped cause so many problems?"

Hermione smiled broadly with gratitude. After removing her hand from Iris' hopeless hair, she checked her watch. "Isn't it time we were going?" she asked.

"Yep," Iris agreed. "Wouldn't want to be late for my own funeral."

Hermione rolled her eyes. She **knew **that Iris wouldn't be able to resist making that joke. She **knew **it. _Just goes to show how little she's changed_, Hermione thought.

* * *

Hermione looked around at the solemn gathering. There were about twenty people assembled in a large, corporate-style atrium. A solemn gathering, but a cold and impersonal space. A few of the people at Natasha's memorial service _(it's a __**memorial service**__, _Hermione reminded herself, _not a __**funeral**__! So Iris' stupid joke wasn't even accurate!)_ knew the truth, but most didn't. Those who did know, knew better than to stare at either Iris or Hermione. Those who didn't know didn't give them a second glance. _I guess Iris was right._ _Even people here are easily fooled by the smallest of things._

She didn't pay too close attention to the words used by those chosen to speak. She didn't know how much of what they said was true or false. Iris would eventually tell her what she needed to know, and those who were friendly with her would probably provide their own perspectives at some point. Instead, Hermione focused on the tone and mannerisms of the speakers. If working for Tony Stark had taught her anything, it was that **how** people said things could matter as much as **what** they said.

Nick Fury's speech was respectful and dignified. _This is a warrior's speech_, Hermione thought. _One warrior sending off another. He seems to respect her, though I think there's an undertone of caution there, seeing how often he repeats how dangerous Natasha could be to her enemies. He could be worried about what would happen if he became her enemy._

Maria Hill's speech was oddly impersonal, given how Iris seemed to regard her as her closest female acquaintance in S.H.I.E.L.D. _Either they've had a falling out_, Hermione mused, _or, more likely, "closest" isn't all that close. _Hill had been the one to first approach her about working for S.H.I.E.L.D. Initially, Hermione had been surprised and flattered, but since then she'd grown to find it suspicious. _A deputy director would not normally go out recruiting new researchers. There's something more going on_.

The most personal speech came from Clint Barton. He was the only one to include personal anecdotes that pointed to the existence of a real person. _"Hawkeye," Iris called him. She said he was the one who brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D., and it looks to me like they've developed a close association — at least for his part. I'll bet he knew "Natasha" better and more personally than anyone else here. I'll definitely have to get to know him if I want to understand what Iris has been like these past ten years._

The oddest speech came from Phil Coulson. At times it seemed personal — not quite as personal as Clint's, but close. At other times, however, it came across as stiff and uncomfortable. That might have stemmed from the man's personality, but it might also have been due to some conflict between him and Iris. _She said he's a nice guy and that she learned a lot from him. She definitely respects him. What's his problem, then?_

"So," Hermione asked when the speeches were over and people started milling around, "I guess you won't be going by the moniker 'Black Widow' anymore?"

"Nope," Iris answered, "but I think I'll be able to get used to the 'Black Witch.' Since I have the right in magical society to use the name Black, it's fitting in more ways than one." Stopping and thinking for a second, she continued with a giggle that Hermione was familiar with, but no one in S.H.I.E.L.D. would recognize, "Oh, Merlin. Can you imagine Ron's reaction to the name 'Black Widow'?"

Snorting, Hermione said, "He'd have nightmares about you." After a pause, she went on, "Are you going to contact him? Them? Everyone still misses you, you know."

"I... I don't know. I honestly hadn't thought about that, though I'm sure I should have." Looking at her friend, she asked, "Are you still in contact with them?"

"Sure," Hermione responded. "It's not often, but it's regular enough. And I go back once or twice a year."

"Do they all hate me?

Hermione had to think for a moment before answering. "Hate is a strong word. Are they angry? Yes. Disappointed? Very. But there is still love."

Iris smiled wanly at that.

"However," Hermione added, "that doesn't mean that you would get off scot-free. Ron will want to punch you, but then he won't want to because you're a girl. Molly will want to feed you until you burst. Ginny will send a bat-bogey hex at you sooner or later. George will prank you till you bleed. Andromeda, though, she's the one you'll have to watch out for. You left her with Teddy, and while she loves him to death, she could have used some help."

Iris took a deep breath before saying, "Well, I guess I'll have to get back in touch with them. I can't ask you to not mention me, that wouldn't be fair to you. However, I'm not ready to resume contact right now. I'm honestly not sure when I will be. You can pass on whatever you want — well, whatever isn't classified — and we'll see how they react. Maybe it will be easier once they're used to me existing again."

"I guess that's fair," Hermione said. "I won't push you, but in exchange you can't wait forever. OK?"

"Deal," Iris said with a smile. "By the way," she added, "I didn't leave Andromeda entirely without help."

"Oh?" Hermione asked.

"I guess she never mentioned how her Gringotts vault occasionally got filled with extra galleons that couldn't be explained?"

"Why... yes, I do seem to remember that happening a couple of times." Hermione started biting her bottom lip as she thought about it. "Wait, are you saying that was you?"

"Yep. When I found myself in possession of extra, uh, _resources_, I would send some her way. It wasn't much and it doesn't replace loving family members, but I don't want you to think that I completely abandoned my responsibilities as godmother."

"Some?" Hermione asked incredulously. "It was quite a lot, if I remember correctly, and it definitely helped. She always wondered where the money was coming from, but the goblins refused to tell her — they would only confirm that it was definitely hers, not an accounting error or anything."

"Good," Iris said. "Maybe the next gift I'll be able to deliver in person rather than anonymously."

* * *

Tony's voice announced his presence long before he showed up. "Hi, guys," Pepper called out when she saw them.

"Tony, Pepper," Iris said in greeting. "I didn't see you at the service."

"We weren't," Tony announced unapologetically.

"Tony doesn't much like those sorts of functions," Pepper added a bit more apologetically.

"Of course not," Tony went on, "They're grim, depressing, and pointless. And I have something much better in mind." The self-satisfied grin on his face was suspicious.

"Oh?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, a wake! With a pool! And serving robots! Instead of moping about, let's all have a party, dress in skimpy outfits, get drunk, and remember how much fun life can be."

"Tony!" Pepper exclaimed in exasperation, as if she could claim to still be shocked at anything he said.

Hermione frowned, saying, "I don't..."

"That's a great idea," Iris quickly interjected. Hermione couldn't hide the surprised look on her face when she whipped her head around to look at her friend. "I still say that the memorial service was necessary, but I agree that a wake would be a lot of fun. When are you holding it?"

"Tonight," Tony said, "and it will go on until the last person passes out. Invite whomever you want. The more the merrier."

"I have to admit," Iris said, "I'm a little surprised that you're willing to invite me into your home."

Tony looked a bit uncomfortable at that, but he quickly regrouped. "I'm willing to let the past stay the past." He then gave one of his patented smiles. "Besides, it will give me more time to work on Hermione so I can convince her to keep her position at Stark Industries."

* * *

"Are you sure about going to a wake?" Hermione asked once they were alone again. "The Iris Potter I knew never would have agreed to that."

Iris nodded. "Natasha Romanoff probably wouldn't either."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"For precisely those reasons," Iris explained. "I need to make some changes, don't I? Remember, you said that our relationship can't go back to where it was. That means that I can't simply resume being who I was. If you and I are going to try to build something new, then I need to be something new. I need to be more than I was before. Better, too, if only to be worthy of the trust you're showing me by giving me another chance."

Hermione's eyes started to moisten at hearing this. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I don't want you to resent me for forcing you into doing something you don't want."

"Hermione, I've been happier these last few days with you around than I've been at any point during the previous ten years — and that's despite the current distance between us. Trust me, I do want to change. Don't get me wrong, I know it won't be easy or quick. I'm pretty set in my ways, I'm sorry to say. What's more, a lot of what I do, I do because it helps keep me alive. It will take me time, and I'm sure I'll need your help, but I can promise that I'll try."

It wasn't long before Nick Fury came over, followed closely by Coulson and Hill.

"Iris Potter," he half-asked, half-stated.

"Yes," Iris responded.

A small, amused smirk appeared on Fury's face. He held out his hand and said, "I'm Nick Fury. Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D. Let's get you over to the conference room where you can officially meet the people you'll be working with."

ROLL CREDITS


	6. Epilogue - After the Credits

**A/N**: What, you didn't think I _wouldn't_ put something after the credits? I'm kinda disappointed that no one guessed this would be coming — or at least no one said anything.

* * *

**Epilogue - After the Credits**

When Iris entered her apartment, she was in a good mood. That good mood crashed in less than half a second when she realized that someone else was already there. This was one of her more secure bolt holes — a place that she could go in order to relax because no one knew about it. _Well_, she thought, _no one was __**supposed**_ _to know about it._

Tensing, she closed her eyes and allowed her magic to extend outwards, enabling her to sense who and what was in the area. It wasn't exactly like radar, really it wasn't; but if pressed then "magical radar" would be the best analogy she could offer. She was loathe to use that label, though, because she knew that if she did, it would stick and she'd never get rid of it.

As her magic drifted through her apartment, she was able to catalog every thing that was out of place. A shifted chair... someone used the toilet... washed their hands, at least... bedroom door has moved... and... **there!** In the living room!

She located the intruder. Her magic moved more slowly now because even though muggles can't see or sense magic, pushing her magic through an area and against someone usually elicited a response.

She had asked someone once, before obliviating them, and they reported that they had felt the hairs on the back of their neck stand up, as if a threat were nearby. Naturally, this caused them to act as if a threat was indeed nearby, exactly the opposite of what she wanted. The point of using her magic like this was to be stealthy, not to set off people's internal alarms. Iris didn't want to repeat that mistake, so when dealing with people these days, even muggles, she pushed her magic much more slowly and carefully.

There — they were in her apartment's tiny living room, sitting with their back against the wall and facing the room's entrance. _Just a bit further... and..._

Iris' eyes snapped open when she realized who had broken into what she believed was a safe place. **Fury!** _I probably shouldn't be surprised_, she thought. _I'll have to clear out this place in the morning and figure out how to better hide myself._

Abandoning stealth in favor of bravado, she marched into her living room, lit the room with a flick of a finger, tossed her overnight bag onto her sofa, and stood in the middle of the room. Hands on her hips, she glared at the figure sitting in the shadows of the corner. "Well, Fury," she demanded. "What do you want?"

"Is that any way to talk to your new boss, Ms. Potter?" Fury replied in an amused voice.

"I don't see why not," she responded flippantly. "I talked to my old boss this way all the time."

Fury snorted at that. "Yeah, so I heard." He tossed a file on the coffee table and motioned her to take it.

Picking it up, she read the front cover:

**AVENGERS INITIATIVE** | **TOP SECRET**

"What's this, and why are you bringing it to me here?" Iris asked. "If this is related to work, why not give it to me **at** work?

Fury stood up and moved into the light. "The Avengers Initiative is a new program I'm working on. I want to gather together a team of extraordinary individuals to meet major threats that our regular forces can't handle. I want a team of individuals who are all extraordinary on their own, but who will become something even greater by working together, pooling their skills and talents. You were already on a short list to be invited to join, but with your new willingness to use your full suite of abilities, you've been moved to the top of that list."

Giving him a look of despair, Iris responded, "Fury, look, I don't know if I can... you don't know what you'd be getting into. If I can't maintain control when using anything more than the most basic of magic, I could become a bigger threat than whatever it is I'm going after. You don't want that. **I** don't want that. There are good reasons why I stopped using powerful magic."

"You forget, Iris, you have a history of almost eight years with S.H.I.E.L.D. Granted, that history was as Natasha Romanoff rather than Iris Potter, but a change in names doesn't mean a change in character. I've had my eye on you ever since you joined, and I think I've got the measure of you. I have faith that you'll do the right thing, even when pressed."

Iris looked down at the file again, a bit humbled by Fury's faith in her and more than a bit scared at how much could go wrong if it turned out that his faith was misplaced.

"As to why I've brought it by here tonight," Fury continued, "This project is mostly off the books right now. I don't want to bring it out into the open until we have something substantive to show for it. I want to be able to go to the oversight board with a working team already committed to the project so they can better understand the full potential of the Avengers Initiative."

Iris nodded, not sure what to say.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Fury said as he moved towards the door, "I've got to go visit Tony Stark to make the same pitch to him."

Turning, Iris called out, "Are you sure he's right for this sort of task? He's kind of the poster boy for 'loose canon.'"

"That's a good question," he called back as he was about to open the door. "We could use an updated psych profile on Stark, preferably from someone who's worked closely with him."

Finally, after he stepped out and was closing the door, he said loud enough for her enhanced hearing to pick up, "Why don't you ask your girlfriend what she can do to help?"

Iris narrowed her eyes and a green glow started breaking through, but Fury was already gone.


End file.
